New Apple TV Will Have Motion Sensitive Remote And Apple Might Be Eyeing Casual Gaming Market

The Apple TV will have a Wii-like motion sensitive controller. Apple may be making a serious push into gaming, just as Nintendo is gearing up to go mobile. Could these two paths cross soon?
( Joshua Lott | Getty )

Advertisement

All eyes were on Watch last Sept. 9, but, this time, Apple will set out to hold a captive audience as it finally details its plans to change the way the world watches TV. As rumors attempt to sketch a profile of the reworked Apple TV, a report on the set top box's remote control indicates that Apple may even be prepping a push into local social gaming.

Inside of a roundup of all of the Apple TV reports he's been fielding, TechCrunch editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino offered new details about the streaming hardware's remote control.

Matthew Panzarino corroborated earlier reports that asserted that the Apple TV will have a thicker build, a microphone to speak with Siri, two physical buttons near its base and a touchpad near its crown. In addition to all that, the Apple TV's remote control will have motion sensors that enable it to function much like a Wii nunchuck.

"The possibilities, of course, are immediately evident," writes Panzarino. "A game controller with a microphone, physical buttons, a touchpad and motion sensitive controls would be extremely capable."

Such a capable game controller has the potential to breath new life into party games available now on iOS, Panzarino pointed out.If the report holds true and Apple does package a Wii-like controller with the Apple TV, the set top box could spearhead a forceful charge into the gaming space.

In the past, Apple treated gaming about as seriously as it treated the Apple TV but in the last year alone, Apple CEO Tim Cook and company have gently pushed gaming on two fronts, mobile and now Mac, and Apple TV looks to be the third.

Last Sept. 9,2014, Apple debuted Metal and used Moba Vain Glory to show off the abilities of the application programming interface, and back in June, during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced that it built out Metal for Mac OS X.

Though Vainglory looks great and Metal offers promise, Apple will still need developers to make games in order make any serious push into the gaming space.

Well, Apple could focus on first-party titles like Nintendo if it doesn't receive the developer's response it wants. It's quite ironic that Apple pushing its hardware to be more like a game console and Nintendo finally deciding to go mobile. Maybe we'll see a Nintendo mobile game ported to Apple TV.